Saturday, November 11, 2017

Governor Andrew Cuomo today announced that new service
branch-specific license plates are available for the U.S. Army, U.S.
Navy, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Marines.

The new custom
plates, made available for the first time in New York, join a number of
others offered in the Veteran and Military series, including the Purple
Heart Recipient, Vietnam Veteran and War on Terror Veteran license
plates.

In celebration of Veterans Day, the more than 770,000 veterans
who call New York home will now be able to represent their branch of
service on their license plates.

To
commemorate Veterans Day, General Bruce Carlson, USAF, Retired,
addressed Utah State University Research Foundation and Space Dynamics
Laboratory employees in honor of the many men and women who have served
our country. General Carlson serves as Vice Chair of the Research
Foundation Board of Trustees and is a member of SDL’s Guidance Council.

Based on Martha Raddatz’s New York Times Best-Seller of the same name,
the series relives a heroic fight for survival during the Iraq War, when
the 1st Cavalry Division from Fort Hood was ferociously ambushed on
April 4, 2004, in Sadr City, Baghdad — a day that came to be known as
“Black Sunday.”

The series cuts between the action on the ground in Iraq
and that of the homefront back in Texas, where wives and families await
news for 48 hellish hours, expecting the worst.

On Veteran's Day, we remember the brave men and women of our armed
forces who have defended our country and sacrificed so much to protect
our freedom. As a proud Marine Corps veteran, I would like to thank my
fellow service members for responding to the call of duty. Please know
that I support you and stand in solidarity with you, not just on
Veteran's Day, but every day. May God Bless Our Veterans and God Bless
America.

Friday, November 10, 2017

Veteran's Day is approaching,
and many restaurant chains and other businesses honor vets every year
with free and discounted meals and other special offers.

Below, you can find a full list of freebies and other offers for
veterans and active military service members this year from places like
Applebee's, Red Robin, Chipotle, Denny's and more. Some of the offers
start before Saturday, so veterans can claim their freebies all week.

Most
businesses require proof of military service to collect on the offers. A
Military ID card is usually preferred, but a VA Health Care Card, a
Leave and Earnings Statement, a veteran's driver's license, discharge
paperwork or other forms of identification may be acceptable.

It's best to call ahead to verify that the deal or offer is active at
your local business. Many offers are for "participating locations."

This year has seen renewed struggles for
transgender service members who were left in the dark following tweets
from President Trump about a ban on trans people in the armed forces.

The ban has since been blocked,
but for many LGBTQ service members, the effect was chilling and
reminiscent of "don't ask, don't tell," which saw many people discharged
from service for their identity.

However,
advocates and allies have doubled down on their work, including LGBTQ
veterans. On Veterans Day, we celebrate the contributions members of the
community have made to better the lives of other service members.

During NAN’s Saturday
Action Rally and television and radio broadcast, Rev. Al Sharpton will
lead a prayer for United States veterans including fallen Army Sgt. La
David T. Johnson before heading to Miami to
lead a support rally for United States Representative Frederica Wilson
(D-FL).

Rev. Sharpton will also give an update on his meeting with the
President of ESPN and civil rights leaders and summarize what the group
is asking for.

The prayer service and rally will be held at the National Action Network's House of Justice at 106 West 145th Street in Harlem.

Listen live on WLIB 1190 AM in New York City or watch the live-stream at
www.nationalactionnetwork.net. It will also be available on Impact Television Network, which is nationally syndicated.

The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance today encouraged
veterans to take advantage of valuable tax exemptions and credits
available to them, their families, and employers.

“These
exemptions and credits are one small way we can show our gratitude to
the brave and dedicated individuals who currently serve or have served
in our military,” said Acting Commissioner of Taxation and Finance Nonie
Manion. “We’re proud of our veterans and grateful for the sacrifices
they’ve made to protect the freedoms we all enjoy. I encourage all
veterans to take advantage of these valuable programs.”

New York
State Division of Veterans' Affairs Director Eric J. Hesse said,
"Governor Cuomo is dedicated to ensuring that New York is a great state
for veterans and their families to call home. Affording these tax breaks
and credits to veterans and their families in New York on their
properties, in their school districts and their businesses demonstrates
Governor Cuomo's commitment to making New York the place veterans and
their families choose."

Property tax exemption

New York’s veterans are eligible for valuable property tax exemptions from local governments statewide.

More
than half a million New York veterans now benefit from property tax
exemptions. The exemptions can reduce the property tax burden of a
wartime veteran by 15%, or as much as 25% if the veteran served in a
combat zone. Many local governments also offer a Cold War veterans’
exemption of up to 15% for veterans who served on active duty between
1945 and 1991.Both categories of exemption allow the percentage
of the exemption to be increased to as high as 50% if the veteran was
disabled as a result of his or her military service.

Governor
Cuomo signed legislation in September that allows the Cold War veterans
exemption to be granted for as long as the veteran owns the property, if
the local government or school district so chooses. Otherwise, the
exemption would be limited to a 10-year term.

In addition, legislation signed
last month by the Governor extended the option for school districts to
grant the eligible funds veterans’ exemption. In 2013 and 2016 the
alternative veteran's property tax exemption and Cold War property tax
exemption were amended to give school districts the option to allow the
exemption, so now each veterans property tax exemption is consistent and
allowed to be applicable to school taxes.

Of the 679 school districts statewide, 276 are now granting at least one of the available veterans’ exemptions.

Because the types and amounts of exemptions offered and application
deadlines vary, veterans should contact their local assessor’s office
for details on how to obtain these valuable tax benefits. For local
contact information, visit our Municipal Profiles website.

Hire a veteran credit

There are two state credits available that encourage businesses to hire veterans. The hire a veteran credit can be claimed by: corporations subject to franchise tax; or individuals, estates, and trusts taxable under personal income tax laws.

Employers that have hired veterans who began working on or after January 1, 2014, but before January 1, 2018,
may qualify for this state business tax credit worth as much as $15,000
per veteran. The veteran must have worked for one year or more for at
least 35 hours each week.

Business owners may claim the credit in
the tax year in which the qualified veteran completes one year of
employment. The credit may be claimed for tax years beginning on or
after January 1, 2015, but before January 1, 2019.

The
amount of the credit is equal to 15% of the total wages paid to a
disabled veteran during their first full year of employment. The credit
is worth up to $15,000 per disabled veteran. For nondisabled veterans,
the credit is equal to 10% of the total wages up to $5,000 per
nondisabled veteran.

To claim the credit, the employer must have the veteran certify that they qualify as an eligible veteran on Form DTF-75, Employee Affidavit for the Hire a Veteran Credit.

Wilmot Collins is one of the Election Night winners making national
headlines. The Helena, Montana mayor-elect first came to the city 23
years ago as a refugee from Liberia - and he is believed to the first
African American mayor in Montana history.

As a new wave of social activism protesting police
killings of unarmed black men and women and decrying white supremacy
sweeps the country, a leaked FBI report has activists and members of
Congress demanding answers.

The 12-page assessment,
written in August and titled “Black Identity Extremists Likely
Motivated to Target Law Enforcement Officers,” was posted online by Foreign Policy. Citing attacks on police following the 2014 shooting death of unarmed teen Michael Brown
by a white officer, the assessment notes “it is very likely Black
Identity Extremist perceptions of police brutality against
African-Americans” have caused an increase in violence against law
enforcement.

In October, the Congressional Black Caucus sent a letter
to FBI director Christopher Wray seeking answers related to the
assessment given the Bureau’s “troubling history” of utilizing its broad
investigatory powers to target black citizens.

Los Angeles County prosecutors are preparing to tackle Hollywood's
growing tide of sexual misconduct accusations with a new task force.

The group of veteran sex crimes prosecutors
will "ensure a uniformed approach to the legal review and possible
prosecution of any case that meets both the legal and factual standards
for criminal prosecution," Jackie Lacey, the Los Angeles County district
attorney, said in a statement Thursday.

She said her office has been in contact with the Los Angeles and Beverly
Hills police departments, but has yet to receive cases warranting
criminal charges.

President Trump has opened the White House doors to extremism, not only
consulting with hate groups on policies that erode our country’s civil
rights protections but enabling the infiltration of extremist ideas into
the administration’s rhetoric and agenda.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) now has a resource,
Hate in the White House, that serves as a monthly timeline of instances
of extremism in the Trump administration.

Within hours of a Washington Post story reporting the allegations against Roy Moore,
a former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, the Senate’s top
Republicans called on Moore to withdraw from the race—albeit with a
caveat.

“If these allegations are found to be true, Roy
Moore must drop out of the Alabama special Senate election,” National
Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Cory Gardner (R-CO)
said in a statement.

“I just recently put out a
statement saying if these allegations are true, Roy Moore should step
aside for all the obvious reasons. Very disturbing allegations,” Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told reporters outside the Senate
chamber.

“If there is any truth to that, he ought to
step aside, of course,” Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) told The Daily Beast
about the allegations against Moore, who is running to fill Attorney
General Jeff Sessions’ former Senate seat.

For years, Louis C.K.’s fellow male comedians refused to comment on the sexual misconduct allegations against their friend (and sometime mentor).

By Marlow Stern

In the fall of 2015, I sat down with Aziz Ansari to discuss his excellent new Netflix series Master of None.
We met at The Greenwich Hotel (his suggestion) and, over the course of
an hour—and several cups of coffee—engaged in a lively, unbridled
discussion touching on race, comedy, and everything in between.

There was only one question that he refused to answer.

Midway
through the interview, the topic of sexual harassment came up. The
seventh episode of his show, titled “Ladies and Gentlemen,” sees Dev
(Ansari’s character) and his pal Denise (Lena Waithe)
making a citizen’s arrest after catching a middle-aged man masturbating
on the subway. Dev then proceeds to take a victory lap, bragging about
the incident to his other female friends, who subsequently brand him a
“masturbation vigilante” before sharing their own sexual harassment
horror stories.

“The seed of that episode came from a bit
during my Madison Square Garden special where I’d talk about women
getting followed home by creepy dudes, and I’d ask during the bit,
‘Raise your hands if you’re a woman and you’ve been followed home,’ and everyone would
raise their hand. And then all the other women would look around and
go, ‘What the fuck?!’ Then, I’d ask all the guys if they expected all
the women to raise their hands, and none of them really did. They
couldn’t believe it,” he told me.

He continued: “I
thought it was interesting that this is happening, yet so many people
are unaware of it. And the problem is people aren’t talking about it.
What I’ve learned, as a guy, is to just ask women questions and listen
to what they have to say. Go to your group of female friends and ask
them about times they’ve experienced sexism at their job, and you’ll get
blown away by the things they tell you. You’ll think, ‘What the fuck?
This is way darker than anything I’d imagined.’”

After clinching an easy victory Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio immediately signaled an interest in the national stage, but growing problems at home loom as he begins his second term.

A litany of unresolved municipal issues will demand the
mayor's attention in the coming four years, all while economic growth is
slowing and the federal government plans to cut funding for some of the
city’s most cash-strapped services, like public housing and hospitals.

Topping de Blasio's City Hall to-do list will be addressing
the homeless crisis, closing and replacing Rikers Island jail and
expanding affordable housing.

In Albany the mayor faces a second front where his enemies
outnumber his allies. To compensate for the budgetary shortfall and fund
the city's deteriorating subway system, de Blasio will push for a tax
increase on high-income earners. He also intends to ask for more cash
from the state to fund the next phase of his pre-kindergarten expansion
plan.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New funding sources for New York’s Metropolitan
Transportation Authority will need to be identified for the authority to
avoid unplanned fare and toll hikes, according to a report released on
Thursday by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

In addition to needed funding, the report highlights the “deteriorated”
performance of the nation’s largest mass transit agency, citing the Long
Island Rail Road’s on-time operation is on track for its worst
performance in 17 years.

Uber has ended a troubled car leasing program for drivers with bad credit in New York.

The company told Quartz it terminated the lease-to-own program it
operated through partnerships with four car dealers in New York City
after an internal audit of its “vehicle solutions” in the city. That
review was prompted by a Quartz investigation
into the subprime car leases that Uber marketed to its largely
immigrant driver population, which came with three-year contracts and
high termination fees. Uber halted referrals to the car leasing program
in June, after being approached about it by Quartz.

President Donald Trump refused to take questions during a joint
appearance with Chinese President Xi Jinping, breaking with a precedent
set by the past three U.S. leaders to push back against China's tight
control over the media.

Trump’s refusal to answer questions from the
media in China marked a break from examples set by former Presidents
Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. All three took at least
one question during appearances with their Chinese counterparts, as part
of an effort to exert pressure on China's government to allow exchanges
with reporters.

President Donald J. Trump applauds the Senate Finance Committee for introducing their companion to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which is another important step toward providing historic tax relief for the American people. The President is encouraged that the House and Senate have shown great unity in achieving our common goals of delivering middle-class tax relief, simplifying the burdensome tax code, and empowering American businesses to create more jobs, increase wages, and compete in the global economy. We will continue working with Congress to deliver tax cuts and reforms for hardworking Americans by the end of the year.

Brandon Whitehead dropped to his knees in the middle of the busy
street, cars veering around him as an off-duty Chicago police officer
aimed a handgun at him and his father.

It was nearly midnight, and Walter Whitehead had been driving his
16-year-old home from his job as a cashier at Long John Silver’s.

Brandon stayed quiet as the officer, who also had just left work,
called 911 for assistance. Then the officer, William Levigne, called
again. On the third call, Levigne became indignant, requesting help from
“a brother in blue” as he blocked traffic: “I’ve got two offenders here
in custody — tried to kill me here!”

Levigne later told investigators that the Whiteheads had cut him off
in traffic that night in October 2006 as they were driving down South
Western Avenue on the city’s South Side. He overtook them in his Monte
Carlo while pointing a gun at them, then ordered them out of their car
at a stoplight, forced them to their knees and handcuffed Walter
Whitehead, records show.

Brandon Whitehead had called 911, too. He was terrified as Levigne,
not in uniform, approached the car with his gun drawn, swearing and
calling them “jagoff” and “motherfucker.” He and his father initially
thought they were being carjacked.

A Democratic member of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity filed suit against the commission
in federal court in Washington, D.C. on Thursday morning, alleging that
its Republican leadership has intentionally excluded him from
deliberations and violated federal transparency laws. The commission has
been sued more times (eight, including the new filing) than it has
officially convened for meetings (two times).

The suit, filed by Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, accuses
the commission of violating the Federal Advisory Commission Act, which,
among other things, requires that advisory committees be bipartisan and
sets transparency requirements for them. “Everything we are doing is
absolutely perpendicular to that,” Dunlap charged in an interview. “We
aren’t inviting the public to participate. We aren’t transparent. And we
aren’t even working together at all. My real fear is that this
commission will offer policy recommendations that have not been properly
vetted by all of the commissioners.”

The complaint contends Dunlap “has been, and continues to be, blocked
from receiving Commission documents necessary to carry out his
responsibilities” despite repeated requests to be included. It asserts
that Dunlap is moving forward with the lawsuit “reluctantly” in order to
prevent the commission from “becoming exactly the kind of one-sided,
partisan undertaking the Federal Advisory Committee Act was designed to
prohibit.”

There are times that you run across something that’s so
preposterous that it’s hard to believe it’s true. But in this case, it
is.

I’m talking about the multiple — and permanent — set of tax breaks
that some of the Trump administration’s mega-wealthy appointees and
their heirs stand to get if the estate tax repeal in the House
Republicans’ tax bill becomes law.

The appointees I’m talking about are those with a net worth above $11
million (which is a lot of them) who sold assets that the Office of
Government Ethics said would pose conflict-of-interest problems in their
new gigs.

Combine the rules that cover such sales with terms of the proposed
estate tax repeal, and these people get a multilevel, multigenerational
bonanza. A gift that would keep on giving (and giving and giving).

I couldn’t believe what I was reading, and figured that I might be
overly eager to uncover gifts to the ultra-rich in the House tax cut
bill, which is by no means tax reform because it hurts millions of
taxpayers in my home state of New Jersey and other places that aren’t
reliably Republican, but bestows plenty of breaks on big businesses and
the rich. So I asked tax expert Bob Willens of Robert Willens LLC, whom
I’ve consulted for decades, to show me where I was making a mistake.

A large crowd of "Dreamers" staged a loud protest in a Senate office
building in Washington, D.C., calling on lawmakers to pass the so-called
Dream Act, which would protect young immigrants who were illegally
brought to the U.S. as children from deportation. "Dream Act now!" they
chanted as Capitol Police stood nearby.

Mark
Cuban, Dee Dee Myers, Timothy O'Brien, Abby Phillip, and Richard
Plepler react to Donald Trump's "Trump: The Art of the Deal," his
best-selling business book and memoir from 1987. See what these business
titans and experts have to say about whether the book gives good
business advice.

Today's passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act through the House Ways and Means Committee is an important step toward providing historic tax relief for the American people. The President’s priorities have remained the same throughout this process: delivering tax cuts for middle income families, a simplified tax code, and lower rates for American businesses so they can grow, create jobs, raise wages for their workers, and dominate their global competition. There is still much to do, but the Administration remains confident that, through continued cooperation with Congress, we will achieve these priorities this year.

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Former associate editor, reporter and columnist for "The Wave of Long Island" ---
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Has received numerous awards for journalism and community service.

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